Satellite images show how the tiny Ugandan village of Bidi Bidi became the world's largest refugee camp

People who fled fighting in South Sudan are seen walking at sunset on arrival at Bidi Bidi refugee’s resettlement camp near the border with South Sudan, in Yumbe district, northern Uganda December 7, 2016
Reuters

Satellite imagery from Bird.i shows how the world's largest refugee camp has grown dramatically in size since 2016.

Bidi Bidi, in Uganda, is home to over 285,000 refugees who have fled famine and violence in South Sudan.

New satellite technology has the potential to map previously unmapped and unconnected populations, and help policymakers decide where to distribute resources.

LONDON — In 2017 Bidi Bidi in Uganda became the world's largest refugee camp, as people fled from neighbouring South Sudan to escape the worsening food crisis and violence in their home country.

New satellite imagery from tech startup Bird.i shows how the camp has grown with the worsening refugee crisis, as well as how vegetation in the region has changed in response to the influx of people pouring across the Ugandan border.

At the start of 2016, Bidi Bidi was a small village, surrounded by grassland:

Satellite technology of this sort allows dwellings in previously unconnected areas of the world to be tracked: Bird.i said it was possible to pinpoint every house in Bidi Bidi to estimate numbers. Although this is not the startup's main business, Founder Corentin Guillo said such analysis can be used as part of research and development activities.

One company that has started doing this is Facebook, which is using satellite imagery to trace where in the world the 4.2 billion people who don't have internet connections are, in enough detail to pick out individual dwellings.